Private Erick B. Anderson of the
Coos Bay area died of influenza while awaiting a
discharge from the Spruce Production Division. (OSA)

One family's tragedy
Erick Bernard Anderson, a 27 year old son of Swedish immigrants, was drafted
into the military in July 1918. His background as a logger and railroad tie
and pole cutter in the woods of Coos County made him a natural fit for assignment
to the Spruce Production Division in the Pacific Northwest. The division
provided the military with the strong, light spruce wood for use in the airplanes
that were gaining increasing importance in the war.

Just a few months later, hostilities ended and most of those in military
service looked forward to returning to civilian life. Anderson was
sent to the Army barracks at Vancouver where he was to
be mustered out of service and return to Coos County. But while awaiting
his discharge
papers,
he contracted influenza. His father, John, received three telegrams
telling him of his son's worsening condition. He was standing at a
Coos County depot waiting to leave for Vancouver when the news of Erick's
death arrived.

Erick died the day before his 28th birthday. His mother had died when
he was an infant - an only child. Three days later, John and family
friends mourned Erick's death and wrote these words:

"He left his home in Perfect health
he looked so young and brave
We little thought how soon he'd be
laid in a soldier's grave"

Now alone, John joined the thousands of Oregonians who grieved the
loss of loved ones to influenza in 1918 and 1919, both at war and on
the home front.

Oregon suffers as global influenza pandemic hitsA deadly form of influenza swept around the world
in 1918 and 1919. The virus was often called "Spanish
Flu," partially
because the uncensored press in neutral Spain helped publicize the
deadly outbreak. While exact numbers are unknown, it eventually claimed
over 50 million lives
around
the
world
before
it
ended in 1919
(16 million
in India alone). Ironically, the virus took far more lives
than World War I itself claimed.

Private Anderson served in the Army's Spruce Production Division with
these men posing around a log truck. (Image courtesy swansongrp.com)

The precise source and path of the pandemic continues to be a matter
of some debate. A first wave spread around the globe beginning in March
1918. It died down in the summer but only weeks later a second wave,
now much stronger, swept around the world. This outbreak included harsher
symptoms such as bronchial pneumonia, heliotrope cyanosis, and septicemic
blood
poisoning. A
growing number were dying from their symptoms.

Unlike most strains of influenza, it often struck strong, young individuals
more severely than other demographic groups. It could strike incredibly
quickly with symptoms of a brief fever followed abruptly by death.
Pneumonia, the usual secondary cause of death related to influenza,
often did not have a chance to develop because the virus killed so
quickly. It caused an uncontrollable hemorrhaging that filled the lungs,
leaving victims to drown in their own body fluids.

While most casualties of the pandemic were civilian, influenza had
an important effect on the war. By the fall of 1918, a typical troop
ship sailing from America was reaching the port city of Brest,
France with dozens
of deaths from influenza. Convoys of ambulances would meet
the ships to take away the dead and sick soldiers. The sickness swept
through
the
front lines of Germany and its allies at
a time when
they
were
already
weakened
by the attrition of years of war and decreasing human and material
resources. The terrible physical conditions and mental stresses of
trench life lowered the natural immunity of troops on both sides and
allowed the virus to spread even more.

Influenza swept though the trenches of both sides in 1918 making the
experience for soldiers, such as these Americans in France, that much
worse. The
virus also struck the home front. Image colorized. (OSA, Oregon
Defense Council Records, Photographs, Box 2)

The best estimates are that the United States suffered 450,000 civilian
deaths, mostly otherwise healthy people under the age of 40. Death
certificates held by the Oregon State Archives document thousands of
influenza deaths from 1918 to 1919.

In response to the crisis, the Red Cross took steps in communities
throughout Oregon to provide supplies and services. In Klamath Falls,
volunteers made masks, pneumonia jackets, and other articles. These
were then distributed to doctors for the influenza isolation hospital
and for cases of influenza in private homes. The demand for supplies
was
so
great that the Red Cross kept its work rooms open seven days a week
and several evenings in order to keep up. Red Cross nurses and helpers
fanned out into homes throughout the area and worked at the city hospital.
And, in Klamath Falls, the organization helped financially also. It
reached an agreement with the city and county to pay for one third
of the expenses related to the second wave of the epidemic.

(Oregon State Defense Council Records, Personal Military
Service Records, World War I, Box 2, Coos County, School District No.
79; State Historian's Correspondence, Box 1, Folder 38)